Too Close

I don't watch the local news very often - maybe for sports or if the weather is severe but it's certainly not an every day thing. National news is different - I like to follow politics and world news - but when local news shows up on the ticker of a National channel my ears prick up.

Friday evening - about 4:30 - Mr. MOTH called to say he was leaving work. Why, I wanted to know? It was raining pretty hard and there was some flooding, he said. Oh. OK. Not too unusual as his company's building is right on one of the rivers - as in, if you walk across the parking lot, cross a set of train tracks, and you're IN the river.

When he called at 6 from the store to ask a question I was concerned. Didn't you leave work over an hour ago? And you're just getting there now (less than 20 minutes from work)? The rain, dear, the rain. It's unbelievable. It had barely stormed at home so I just wasn't getting it.

The next morning I saw the headlines. A woman and her 2 children died in that flash flood - over 9 feet of water went over their minivan - so high that the rescue boats never even touched the top of their vehicle. I cried. A lot. That woman had died in my own worst nightmare. What were they doing?
Planning what to have for dinner?
Were they arguing over which movie to watch?
Had they finished back-to-school shopping?
Did she kiss her husband good-bye that morning? Or was she cranky because he had switched the Netflix movies without consulting her?
Did she tell the girls not to worry, it was just a little storm?
When did they realize they weren't going to make it?
Did they hold each other?

Go hug your babies tighter today. Sometimes, bad things happen to innocent people.